Breaking Shells
by TimeNebula
Summary: She smiles at him, and he thinks she is the most beautiful person he has ever laid his eyes on.


The first time Spencer Reid meets Hermione Granger, he is running late for a team briefing. It's 7 in the morning and they have just been called into a new case. The moment he parks his car in front of the BAU headquarters, he jumps right out and bumps straight into a small body. It's a woman, he notices, before he is being firmly pushed back._Must be strong_, he thinks.

He is glad that their collision did not result in them tumbling to the ground. He hasn't had his cup of coffee and he is definitely not awake enough to face that kind of embarrassment yet.

"Watch where you're going, mate," the woman snaps at him.

She is British, he notes, before remembering why exactly he was rushing before.

He mutters a halfhearted apology and hurries into the building, leaving behind an annoyed woman, no doubt.

Normally, he is not this rude. In fact, he does not like being rude at all, but he is not willing to face Hotchner's wrath either.

* * *

><p>The second time Spencer Reid meets Hermione Granger, he is on a case in a small town in Ohio. Young blonde women are being abducted right off the streets and their bodies are being dumped into the lake. The BAU has been called in after the third body was found. The team is staying in a small motel and when he and Prentiss are having breakfast the next day, he sees her in a nearby table. She is sitting with a young man around her age and they look incredibly tense. The woman is saying something (there is a lot of hand waving involved, he notes) and her hair seems to be crackling with energy. The man is listening to her with rapt attention. After a while, he notices Spencer staring at them and nudges his companion. He says something to her and she turns around to face him and raises an eyebrow. Spencer quickly turns his head to Prentiss and after a moment, he can feel the woman returning to her conversation.<p>

Prentiss is looking at him with her eyebrows raised and he shrugs, instead starting a conversation on the case.

* * *

><p>The third time he meets Hermione Granger, he has just been shot in the chest. He has chased the unsub into a corn field alone and the unsub has shot him before taking off. He knows the chances of him surviving this very slim, almost next to none. His vision is blurry and he can already feel himself slipping away. Then he feels a pressure on his chest and when he opens his eyes with some struggling, he can only see a pair of brown eyes. There is someone cradling his head and something is touching his wound. He feels his eyes closing, and the last thing he hears is a soft murmur of "Sleep well."<p>

_I know that voice_, he thinks, before everything is dark.

* * *

><p>The fourth time Spencer Reid meets Hermione Granger, he finally learns her name. The team has all been called into Erin Strauss's office and when they all get there, Strauss is talking to a woman. The woman has her back to them, and when she turns around, Spencer has a brief flashback of the day he was shot by Hankel two months ago.<p>

"This is Hermione Granger. She is the head of the Magical Liaison Department of the American Ministry of Magic," Strauss announced.

If it weren't for the fact that Erin Strauss never jokes, he would have thought that they are being pranked.

"Excuse me, Ma'am, but did you just say Magical Liaison Department of the American Ministry of Magic?" Hotchner sounds every bit of incredulous as they all are feeling.

"I'm a witch, Agent Hotchner," the woman, Hermione Granger, bluntly says.

"With all due respect, Ma'am, there's no such thing as magic," Morgan states delicately, as if not to offend the woman.

Hermione Granger does not reply but Spencer remembers a soft murmur in a corn field and he remembers a pair of brown eyes staring at him through a fog.

"You were there." He suddenly declares.

"Excuse me?" Hermione Granger is looking at him now, and he remembers her eyes vividly.

"You were there in the corn field when I was shot. He shot me in the chest. You healed me," he clarifies.

They have never found out what exactly happened in that corn field. There was blood on his shirt but there was no wound. When Spencer told them he was

shot, they told him that he imagined it under stress. _It's alright_, they had consoled him, _happens to the best of us._

"Yes, I did." Granger answers.

"How?" He wonders. He has a suspicion but to believe that goes against everything he has ever known.

"Magic," she is smiling at him. Her smile is all teeth, and it kind of reminds him of a shark.

He forces down the shudder his body is currently urging him to do.

"She's also an auror," Strauss cuts in, intent on carrying through her introduction, "The magic equivalence of the police. If you come across anything that falls under her jurisdiction, meaning magic, she is the person you would want to contact."

Here, Hermione Granger takes up from Strauss, "Due to to a high raise in the murders, the line between magic and muggle are blurring. The Ministry felt it

prudent to brief your team in since we might need each other in the future. So, if you see anything out of the ordinary, please don't hesitate to contact me."

Rossi cuts in, "How 'out of the ordinary' are we talking? We see a lot of out of the ordinary things."

"Rossi, are you actually believing this?" Prentiss looks at Rossi like he has just lost his head.

Perhaps he has, Spencer thinks.

"I've come across their kind once or twice," Rossi replies, "My question, Ms. Granger?"

Granger looks Rossi up and down, as if reconsidering her initial assessment, "Chief Strauss will brief you in. My apologies folks, my time is up here. I'm running late for an appointment."

She nods at all of them, shakes hands with Strauss, and with a pop, she's gone.

"Did she just-"

"How did she-"

"What on earth-"

Everyone seems to be talking at the same time and all Spencer Reid can think is, _she saved my life._

* * *

><p>The fifth time, Spencer Reid meets Hermione Granger, they are working on a case together. His team and her team are working in tangent to bring down a wizard who kills both magical and muggle people. He meets her companion, the one he had seen so long ago. His name is Harry Potter, and Hermione Granger introduces him as her best friend. It's clear that they are close. He also meets another friend of hers, Draco Malfoy. He seems to be an aristocrat.<p>

"He is from an old English family," Hermione later tells him, "Both Harry and Draco are."

It has been almost a year since they have been officially introduced. And somewhere along the way, Hermione Granger has become good friends with his team. She, JJ. Prentiss and Garcia go shopping together, even though she does not strike him as much of the shopping type. She talks strategies with Hotchner and Rossi. Sometimes, he even hears Morgan talking to her. The only person she doesn't talk to or meet up with is him.

Spencer wonders what he has done to offend her.

So, when both of their teams are working on a case together, he expects her to be either avoiding him or be confrontational. Yet, Hermione Granger just smiles at him (and this one's a genuine smile, not like the one he had seen before, the one with too much teeth, he notes) and carries on as if she had not spent the last year avoiding him.

When they catch him, the unsub (a Death Eater, he remembers) lashes out. There are flashes of lights everywhere, and someone gets close enough to the unsub to rip the mask off of his face.

"Dolohov," Hermione rasps from somewhere near him.

And she attacks the man with new vigor, her face a perfect mask of renowned rage.

After a while, the battle stops. From where his team are hiding, (They had been exclusively told to hide. _There's no need to lose you all in the crossfire_, Hermione had told them) they can see the man, Dolohov, on the ground. He's dead, they know.

When they come out of their hiding place, they see that Hermione, too, was on the ground. There is a large gash on her stomach and there is a pool of blood around her. Both Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are hovering around her, despite her obvious attempts of waving them away.

She is still conscious when they place her on the stretcher.

Spencer rides with her on their way to the hospital, along with Harry Potter. Draco Malfoy has finally left her side to look after their other team members.

They are halfway on their way to the hospital when she looks at Spencer.

"Maybe you and I should grab coffee sometime?" She slurs.

_Maybe he hadn't offended her after all,_ Spencer thinks, _maybe I had to pass some sort of test._

Potter is still holding her hands, and he is glaring at him, as if daring him to reject her,

"I would love that," He tells her, brushing back a lock of hair from her forehead.

She smiles at him, and he thinks she is the most beautiful person he has ever laid his eyes on.


End file.
